Unreported ocean: understanding our reliance on the sea
This is video was produced by the Maritime Foundation and highlights the lack of understanding amongst the British public about how we are totally dependent on the sea for most of the food, goods and energy that modern life depends upon. In future the UK will be even more reliant on imports arriving by sea as our food and energy needs will only increase with population growth and failure to recognise this is a grand strategic failure. Recent drastic cuts to the Royal Navy, whose primary purpose is to protect maritime trade, have made little impact in the media or public consciousness. The shipping industry (and indeed the Royal Navy) is a long-term business and this is at odds with our short-term political system.
It is ironic that while we are getting more dependent on the sea and more people spend their leisure time afloat, there is an increasing sea-blindness in the UK. The Maritime Foundation is working to raise awareness and is looking for a paradigm shift in the way policy makers consider our maritime issues. If politicians and the public were properly informed they would never have allowed the Royal Navy to fall into the terrible state in which we find it today.
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kind of reminds me of the British government, and the American government,
the little boy, is so keen to fight, but has nothing to fight with, any problems he relies to much on the big boy, instead of doing his own fighting,, absolutely no insult to the British military, I think ours are the best in the world, but sadly its run by no hopers and a government who cares less and less,
always willing to send our men and women , while the government sits in a nice warm office, nice secretary, and sleeps in a warm bed and earns loads a dosh, and our military is being stripped, even as I write this, redundancies, ships scrapped, planes scrapped, its very simple really,
Give our boys the right bloody tools and equipment, or stop volunteering us .
We need ships cargo ships containers the lot,
Any man who tells me, he has no money,
Then proceeds to give 12+ billions in aid,
Is either a liar, or incompetent ,
This country is still sea surrounded we are utterly dependent on trade by sea read any history book and see first hand that only by having a most strong Navy that means we are safe
An excellent warning! I think one of the unmentioned reasons for our sea blindness is the complete lack of any British owned shipping lines. The industry has been sold out or closed over the past 30/40 years, so other than a few coaster companies, there is nothing left. Indeed there is probably a quite reasonable preception that shipping lines are Chinese or Korean or somewhere in Asia and that they no longer employ British sailors. Why therefore should we have a Navy to protect foreign shipping. A flawed view but non the less a real one.